. Literacies Work in Partnership: the Highland Adult Literacies Partnership (HALP) Strategic Plan and the implications of funding.
Introduction
This essay has been written concerning the issues at a particular point in time and from my own persepctive as Adult Literacies Coordinator for Highland with remit to progress the Highland Adult Literacy and Numeracy Strategic Plan.From informal discussions with colleagues in other Local Authorities it is clear that many of the issues are shared nationally, with various and diverse methods being used or proposed to address them.But this essay is based on the current situation in Highland at time of writing – June 2009. The Highland AdultLiteracy and Numeracy Strategic Plan sets out the aims and priorities for the delivery of literacies throughout Highland by organisations within the Community Learning and Development (CLD) Partnership in Highland.It is reviewed and monitored closely and regularly by the HALP Working Group which I coordinate and manage.The Working Group also distributes a Challenge Fund which offers varying amounts of financial support to any organisation in Highland who might want to include literacy and/or numeracy provision or support in their activity. ESOL is considered in Highland to be “a good thing” because there is an initiative to attract young families to the area to grow and balance the ageing population and to provide a workforce to grow the economy. Part of this intiative is targeted at people, particularly from European Union countries, for whom English is a second or other language. ESOL provision is managed by HALP and community classes encouraged and supported by an ESOL Challenge Fund .Numbers have rocketed from 32 in 2002 to over 900 in 2007-8 and have meant a fairly steep capacity building curve.Some additional support has been given directly by the Scottish Government over the past 3 years but the funding and delivery implications are slightly different than those for ALN and we are now this year developing a separate ESOL Strategic Plan.While there is some cross-over of literacies and ESOL for some learners I have not included ESOL as part of this assignment discussion.
History
The origins of the HALP Strategic Plan go back to 2001 when the Scottish Executive asked each Local Authority (LA) to form a specific Literacies Partnership to draw up and progress an Adult Literacy and Numeracy Action Plan.Once a Plan was approved, each area would receive a certain amount of money based on a formula for perceived need in their area.A total of £18 million was set aside initially for this purpose.A perception was encouraged, by carefully worded letters from the Scottish Executive to Local Authorities, that this money was ringfenced for literacies delivery, although there was never an actual legal requirement for the funding to be spent on this. There was, however, a rigorous reporting system to the Scottish Executive generated by a requirement to be accountable for this funding.The Scottish Executive evaluated statistical evidence and quality assurance from each LA at the end of each year as suggested in the ALNIS Report (ALNIS p. 34).
Prior to receiving this funding, literacies work had been carried out in Highland since the 1970s primarily by the Highland Council’s Adult Basic Education Service (ABE).With minimal funding, seven part-time coordinators operated in Highland using volunteer tutors to help deliver one to one provision.To show commitment to the new Literacies Initiative, Highland Council allocated an extra amount to the ABE budget in 2002.In addition, Highland Council's ABE Service applied for and received further funding from HALP’s Challenge Fund to allow coordinator hours, on average, to be doubled.Not all LA areas operated a Challenge Fund through the Literacies Partnership as Highland did.Some, as a partnership, divided the funding among the various main players.In other LAs the funding was allocated directly from the Council.
In Highland one element of the structure that strengthened the sense of Partnership considerably, was the deliberate positioning of a non-Council representative as Chair of the HALP Working Group.I was interested to note that Mary Norton similarly used the choice of Chair strategically with a group of learners in order to create a power sharing structure. (Norton 2001 p 171) The Scottish Executive’s Initiative had its roots in two particular pieces of work which preceded the set up of Literacies Partnerships in Scotland.The first was the International Adult Literacy Survey which produced its results in 2000.The second was the ALNIS Report, 2001. (ALNIS 2001) In England, the Moser Report had been produced in 1999 (Moser 1999) This informed the delivery of literacies provision in England where the Skills for Life Initiative was launched in March 2001.
Scotland had a separate Education Authority so could make its her own decisions on how literacies work would proceed and these decision makers chose to take a different path.
ALN was, under the new initiative, to be offered free as a right.For many years, of course, it had been.What was new was the recognition that literacies was more than just straight reading and writing.A broader definition was set out in ALNIS (page7) “The ability to read and write, and use numeracy, in order to handle information, to express ideas and opinions, to make decisions and solve problems, as family members, workers, citizens and lifelong learners” and was promoted as the “official” definition on which resources would be based.In addition to provision being carried out using a Social Practice model there was an insistence that delivery be carried out in partnership, in order to be more likely to engage people in ALN learning which would be meaningful to them.The ALNIS report made the pronouncement that “learners are more likely to develop and retain knowledge, skills and understanding if they see them relevant to their own problems and challenges”(ALNIS p.7)as if it were a new concept in teaching.The sad fact was that for many people at the delivery end of the ALN agenda in Scotland at this stage it possibly was!
The implication of the IALS and ALNIS was that the school system was seriously failing a significant portion of the community…and this was not just people with severe learning difficulty.The reluctance of nations to address this phenomenon and “analyse and discuss it”(Limage 2004) mentioned in the Understanding Literacy course book p 52) was (and is) echoed in Highland because such analysis and discussion doesn’t sit well in a “league table society”.The current Highland SOA declares that 51% of working people are at NVQ3 or higher.Obviously this also means that 49% are at NVQ 2 or lower but this information has to be extrapolated. Delivery in partnership was a key element in the early days of the Scottish Literacies Initiative. The activities engaged in collaboratively on the UL course exemplified the advantages of partnership working, showing how the insights and experience of people coming from different angles gave an additionality to the finished learning.Of course there are disadvantages too around the difficulties of communication – especially when situated at a distance from each other. For practitioners in Highland, distance from others (for both learners and tutors) is often a major consideration.
In addition the Scottish Executive also created Learning Connections (LC) in 2003 as a branch of Communities Scotland.LC was engaged to be a “development engine” to support the partnerships and practitioners by enabling support, networking and training development in various aspects of ALN work.For me the opportunities they created for Literacies Partnership Coordinators to share practice and concerns was invaluable.In time, LC also set up sub-groups for particular aspects of literacies work e.g. prisons, youth, workplace, ESOL which were also useful.They also developed the ITALL training (Introductory Training in Adult Literacies Learning) which became the standard training nationally for community tutors (paid and volunteer).
How did it go?
In entrusting complete charge of the literacies funding to HALP, Highland Council gave HALP an edge which allowed a lot of good activity to be carried out.In addition the focus of funding and the obligation to form a partnership to distribute it, enabled an active and lively Community of Practice to be set up involving practitioners from various partners, from those offering straightforward delivery to those in support organisations such as careers guidance.
Of course it hasn’t all been plain sailing.There was a legacy of an underfunded service, carried out only in one to one sessions by volunteers.Gradually over the years HAL Partners have been able to develop group work and accreditation.The Challenge Fund has enabled this kind of delivery to be promoted and encouraged.There are still some issues around who has “control…of basic literacy” (Hamilton, 1996, p.142) I found some resonance too on p 20 of the course papers in that discrete delivery is still seen by some as the real “proper” literacies provision while partners delivering integrated ALN are just “on the edge”.It is an on-going element of our partnership that we too “continue to grapple with”. (Boughton et al, 2004)
We have also had to deal with the turbulence formed where the English and Scottish Initiatives have countered each other in, for example, the Army literacies classes which we provide at Fort George.Time restraints on education time mean that soldiers have to be hurried through courses to achieve Access 3 and Int 1 accreditation in the space of a week and there is not the leeway for them to consolidate their learning or tailor it to their own specific requirements.This fits in the English model (and is the way Army basic skills classes are run in England) but does not allow for the Scottish Social Practice model.We are still (after 7 years) in negotiations with the Army about this.
Over the years, in addition to the actual numbers of learners in literacies provision, anecdotal evidence was collected annually showing how learners felt they themselves were gaining from their learning.However, there was a growing feeling that unless it was made evident in a more statistical way what learning was going on, future funding might be in jeopardy.This suspicion was realised when in 2007 a template came out from the Scottish Executive which included, for the first time, queries about accreditation gained.Suddenly, partnerships were asked to report on an area which had not previously been a significant part of the literacies initiative, which had not been particularly promoted and for which many partnerships were, quite frankly, unprepared in terms of funding and tutor skills.
Change of Government
However before the report for that collecting year was due in, a new SNP Government was in place in Scotland and Partnerships never did have to submit those accreditation reports nationally.We found that not only had the goal posts changed but we were in a different playing field.
As part of the new landscape, the literacies money was now no longer ringfenced, even notionially, and some LAs moved quickly to use that money in other areas.Some Literacies Partnerships have been disbanded.Where they remain there is the prospect of delivering adult literacies within a very different agenda.The emphasis on Social Practice has gone nationally and there is a danger that it could go locally.Or if it remain, it will remain only coincidentally where organisations/agencies are able to produce the statistics required for the local SOA within that model.With the guaranteed funding removed it feels a bit like a ten pin bowling alley with the buffers taken away!We are still aiming at the same goals but without the reassurance of the funding that was there previously.
Part of the difficulty for local literacies partnerships is making local decision makers aware of what we mean by “literacy”.This has had a shifting meaning throughout history.
The first national literacy report in England in 1840 measured the amount of “literacy” by the presence of signatures in wedding registers. (Mace 2001) The United Nations definition (2007) of a literate person is someone “who can, with understanding, both read and write a short simple statement about his (or her) everyday life” (quoted by Lind, 2008 p. 42)
The Scottish Literacies Initiative was based on the definition of literacy in the ALNIS report (ALNIS p. 7) as also quoted above; “The ability to read and write, and use numeracy, in order to handle information, to express ideas and opinions, to make decisions and solve problems, as family members, workers, citizens and lifelong learners”This gave the funders (Scottish Executive) some social practice pegs to set as targets for those receiving literacy provision.
The main definition in modern dictionaries is “the ability to read and write”.But the Heinmann School Dictionary (2002) which claims to be “the most comprehensive school dictionary available” does not include the word “literacy” at all.Is it the case that “complex concepts are (not) susceptible to dictionary like definitions”? (Barton1994 p19) The Curriculum Framework and Curriculum Wheel developed by Learning Connections, in consultation with practitioners, help to show the complexity of literacies learning.It was hoped they would “stimulate reflection” in tutors, “introduce wider possibilities” for managers and “promote discussion” with workers.(Curriculum Framework p.7)In Highland this is still "work in progress" requiring training input for tutors. But many do find that these tools are useful for comprehensively setting out the different dimensions and combinations involved in literacies learning.
What now?Are the prospects for literacy delivery looking better or worse? With the advent of the Concordat (2007) between the Scottish Government and CoSLA in 2007, a new element of “trust” has crept into the political jargon.A National Performance Framework has been constructed with its main purpose being “to focus Government and Public services on creating a more successful country, with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish, through increasing sustainable economic growth”.With the focus on employability there is a danger that funding previously used for literacies provision will be channelled primarily into job readiness and preparation courses with a literacies element.It will be hard, for instance, to argue that a project such as Fit’s it A’ Aboot (Aberdeen Family Learning Team) should attract funding unless the ability to spell in dialect could be shown to be an attribute required for a job.
There is also the question of partnership.In theory LAs are asked to produce their SOA by working in partnership across the organisations involved in the Community Planning Partnerships. In actuality partnership can mean many things to many people.It can be that those making the budget decisions see themselves as working “in partnership” - ticking that box - but that these links are not necessarily consolidated further down the line into the community provision.
Because it is not yet totally clear how literacies will fit into the SOA agenda in Highland, the HALP Strategic Plan is currently at a standstill.It is not certain at this juncture for whom the Partnership Strategy will be.The learners of course, but unless the Strategic Plan is backed up by funding there will be no provision at all other than that provided by partners within their current means.Any Strategic Plan will have allign its targets to tie in closely with the requirements of whoever funds.
Powerful Funding
The beauty of the funding received from Scottish Executive from 2001 onwards was that it was (in Highland) given totally to the Literacies Partnership to do with as it saw fit. Although “trust” may be the SOA buzzword, it is certainly not a new one! Funding is a very powerful motivator for people to work in partnership but even though some HALP Working Group members were representatives of organisations, they did not expect, nor did they receive, funding but stillgave willingly of their time and expertise to create a cohesive literacies provision.
Under the new SOA regime the Local Authority now makes the funding decisions.If these are made without consultation there could be some real loss of power within the Literacies Partnership.So, while the social practice model promoted formerly says we do what learners want, actual practice says we do what funders want.If those making funding decisions in Highland haven’t consulted with learners (or even any levels of practitioners in between who are working closely with learners and aware of need) there is a danger that the Partnership feels, and is, powerless.If activity has tobe shoehorned into the employabiltiy straitjacket, there may have to be some compromise.However I am heartened by reading about boundaries (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder, 2002 p.154) and suggest that “interacting across practices [may force us] to take a fresh look at assumptions.”Funding constrictions and changing systems may be an ill wind that forces us to work in ways that may be more creative and beneficial.
Sticht (2000) lays out the “dangers and insecurities” of going with the economic argument (Hamilton, Macrae and Tett, 2001 p. 38) and suggests that there “seems to be little influence from educational or organisational research” on the benefits of ALN provision on the economy.Certainly after 7 years of ALN delivery in Scotland according to the social practice model there must be be a body of evidence of its effectiveness (that wasn’t there in 2001) to positively influence future funding. Is this not being produced to inform present funding decision makers or is it, for whatever reason, not convincing enough? Could it also be that the “pace of change” has not allowed enough time for meaningful consultation and that this has contributed to the current lack of continuity in the literacies initiative? (Hamilton, Macrae and Tett 2001 p. 38)
Conclusion
The days when literacy was a skill owned by only a small part of the population such as lawyers, doctors and clergy, are now long gone.Where advances in the delivery of education gave people the ability to read and write while the majority around them couldn’t, there were opportunities to earn money e.g. in the 1930s Frank McCourt earns money reading risque stories to and writing debt collecting letters for other people, (McCourt p196ff, p 387 ff).This same phenomenon is seen among homeless people in Australia most of whom have low literacy levels and where literacy is seen as a “shared resource” (Castleton, 2001 p.58)
Now while an adequate level of literacy/numeracy is seen by many as a vital necessity if people are to be able to play a full part in life and to achieve their potential, it may not be seen by funders in the same light if their focus is on only one particular aspect where literacies might be relevant, e.g. employability.The ideological model makes the possibilities within literacy as limitless as the combinations of the Enigma machine.The autonomous one looks at specific skills only, and there is a real danger at this time that we revert to the autonomous model of delivery.As we have seen, the description of “literacy” in the ALNIS report doesn’t feature in mainstream dictionary definitions, and therefore almost certainly not in the minds of funding decision makers either. (And “literacies” doesn’t feature at all being a new word coined for the first time by xxxxxx in xxxxxx) The downside of funders having a fairly limited understanding of what we mean by “literacies” is that it is also very difficult to measure and to evidence to them what we are doing and to show the beneficial impact.The measurements of progress are probably as numerous and as individual as the numbers of those who undertake literacies learning and therefore almost impossible to present in any way that does not involve a lot of tedious collecting and collating .
Erlewyn-Lajeunesse and Fowler mention “the almost obsessive preoccupation with quantatative outcomes” of funders (Erlewyn-Lajeunesse and Fowler 2001) but I would suggest that this “obsession” is more by default of it being something that funders (who tend to breathe statistics from morn till night) can understand and appreciate.(Perhaps even as a result of their own past learning experiences?)
There is a danger too, with SOAs devolved to local decision makers that, unless they have their ears to the ground and are consulting with and getting advice from literacies practitioners at some level, their view of what literacies learning entails may well be a reflection of their own view of what is meant by literacies – again, possibly from their own experiences at school.
However literacy provision is not an end in itself but the provision of a tool by which social practices are accomplished. We should therefore not necessarily be alarmed that there is a possibility of being funnelled into other related agendas (such as the employability/economic growth agenda). Ideally the new Curriculum for Excellence will have a beneficial effect on those currently in the school system.Indeed it is a pity that that initiative didn’t run alongside the Adult Literacies Initiative from 2001.What differences might we have been beginning to see by now, I wonder, if it had been? In England one target of the National Strategy for Adult Basic Skills was that by 2010 95% of 19 year olds will have adequate literacy. Hopefully the Curriculum for Excellence may begin to address this in Scotland.In Highland certainly the qualifications of those leaving school in 2008 were no higher than those leaving in 2002 but there is certainly a much more optimistic feel at the present time that schools and community workers collaborating together will be able to make a real difference in this area..
As Tett says (Tett 2003, p 29) “Sustainability is a real issue for partnership working especially in the context of a formal partnership that is funded on a temporary basis.”Perhaps one of the main lessons learned to date has been that there is more than one way to skin a cat.Collaborative working can often throw up ideas that would not have been possible without the synergy of a group or a community of practice.Although the literacies world is undergoing a sea change politically, if we trim our sails and tack we may still be able to make our way, possibly finding new partners to interact with as we go.
“Literacy is deeply and inescapably bound up with producing, reproducing and maintaining unequal arrangements of power.” (Crowther, Hamilton and Tett 2001 p.1)
So, nothing changes!We continue the “balancing act between well-developed communities and active boundary management” (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder, 2002 p.154) even where the boundaries have changed.
Literacies Work in Partnership: the Highland Adult Literacies Partnership (HALP) Strategic Plan and the implications of funding.
Introduction
This essay has been written concerning the issues at a particular point in time and from my own persepctive as Adult Literacies Coordinator for Highland with remit to progress the Highland Adult Literacy and Numeracy Strategic Plan. From informal discussions with colleagues in other Local Authorities it is clear that many of the issues are shared nationally, with various and diverse methods being used or proposed to address them. But this essay is based on the current situation in Highland at time of writing – June 2009.The Highland Adult Literacy and Numeracy Strategic Plan sets out the aims and priorities for the delivery of literacies throughout Highland by organisations within the Community Learning and Development (CLD) Partnership in Highland. It is reviewed and monitored closely and regularly by the HALP Working Group which I coordinate and manage. The Working Group also distributes a Challenge Fund which offers varying amounts of financial support to any organisation in Highland who might want to include literacy and/or numeracy provision or support in their activity.
ESOL is considered in Highland to be “a good thing” because there is an initiative to attract young families to the area to grow and balance the ageing population and to provide a workforce to grow the economy. Part of this intiative is targeted at people, particularly from European Union countries, for whom English is a second or other language. ESOL provision is managed by HALP and community classes encouraged and supported by an ESOL Challenge Fund . Numbers have rocketed from 32 in 2002 to over 900 in 2007-8 and have meant a fairly steep capacity building curve. Some additional support has been given directly by the Scottish Government over the past 3 years but the funding and delivery implications are slightly different than those for ALN and we are now this year developing a separate ESOL Strategic Plan. While there is some cross-over of literacies and ESOL for some learners I have not included ESOL as part of this assignment discussion.
History
The origins of the HALP Strategic Plan go back to 2001 when the Scottish Executive asked each Local Authority (LA) to form a specific Literacies Partnership to draw up and progress an Adult Literacy and Numeracy Action Plan. Once a Plan was approved, each area would receive a certain amount of money based on a formula for perceived need in their area. A total of £18 million was set aside initially for this purpose. A perception was encouraged, by carefully worded letters from the Scottish Executive to Local Authorities, that this money was ringfenced for literacies delivery, although there was never an actual legal requirement for the funding to be spent on this. There was, however, a rigorous reporting system to the Scottish Executive generated by a requirement to be accountable for this funding. The Scottish Executive evaluated statistical evidence and quality assurance from each LA at the end of each year as suggested in the ALNIS Report (ALNIS p. 34).Prior to receiving this funding, literacies work had been carried out in Highland since the 1970s primarily by the Highland Council’s Adult Basic Education Service (ABE). With minimal funding, seven part-time coordinators operated in Highland using volunteer tutors to help deliver one to one provision. To show commitment to the new Literacies Initiative, Highland Council allocated an extra amount to the ABE budget in 2002. In addition, Highland Council's ABE Service applied for and received further funding from HALP’s Challenge Fund to allow coordinator hours, on average, to be doubled. Not all LA areas operated a Challenge Fund through the Literacies Partnership as Highland did. Some, as a partnership, divided the funding among the various main players. In other LAs the funding was allocated directly from the Council.
In Highland one element of the structure that strengthened the sense of Partnership considerably, was the deliberate positioning of a non-Council representative as Chair of the HALP Working Group. I was interested to note that Mary Norton similarly used the choice of Chair strategically with a group of learners in order to create a power sharing structure. (Norton 2001 p 171)
The Scottish Executive’s Initiative had its roots in two particular pieces of work which preceded the set up of Literacies Partnerships in Scotland. The first was the International Adult Literacy Survey which produced its results in 2000. The second was the ALNIS Report, 2001. (ALNIS 2001) In England, the Moser Report had been produced in 1999 (Moser 1999) This informed the delivery of literacies provision in England where the Skills for Life Initiative was launched in March 2001.
Scotland had a separate Education Authority so could make its her own decisions on how literacies work would proceed and these decision makers chose to take a different path.
ALN was, under the new initiative, to be offered free as a right. For many years, of course, it had been. What was new was the recognition that literacies was more than just straight reading and writing. A broader definition was set out in ALNIS (page7)
“The ability to read and write, and use numeracy, in order to handle information, to express ideas and opinions, to make decisions and solve problems, as family members, workers, citizens and lifelong learners”
and was promoted as the “official” definition on which resources would be based. In addition to provision being carried out using a Social Practice model there was an insistence that delivery be carried out in partnership, in order to be more likely to engage people in ALN learning which would be meaningful to them. The ALNIS report made the pronouncement that “learners are more likely to develop and retain knowledge, skills and understanding if they see them relevant to their own problems and challenges” (ALNIS p.7) as if it were a new concept in teaching. The sad fact was that for many people at the delivery end of the ALN agenda in Scotland at this stage it possibly was!
The implication of the IALS and ALNIS was that the school system was seriously failing a significant portion of the community…and this was not just people with severe learning difficulty. The reluctance of nations to address this phenomenon and “analyse and discuss it”(Limage 2004) mentioned in the Understanding Literacy course book p 52) was (and is) echoed in Highland because such analysis and discussion doesn’t sit well in a “league table society”. The current Highland SOA declares that 51% of working people are at NVQ3 or higher. Obviously this also means that 49% are at NVQ 2 or lower but this information has to be extrapolated.
Delivery in partnership was a key element in the early days of the Scottish Literacies Initiative. The activities engaged in collaboratively on the UL course exemplified the advantages of partnership working, showing how the insights and experience of people coming from different angles gave an additionality to the finished learning. Of course there are disadvantages too around the difficulties of communication – especially when situated at a distance from each other. For practitioners in Highland, distance from others (for both learners and tutors) is often a major consideration.
In addition the Scottish Executive also created Learning Connections (LC) in 2003 as a branch of Communities Scotland. LC was engaged to be a “development engine” to support the partnerships and practitioners by enabling support, networking and training development in various aspects of ALN work. For me the opportunities they created for Literacies Partnership Coordinators to share practice and concerns was invaluable. In time, LC also set up sub-groups for particular aspects of literacies work e.g. prisons, youth, workplace, ESOL which were also useful. They also developed the ITALL training (Introductory Training in Adult Literacies Learning) which became the standard training nationally for community tutors (paid and volunteer).
How did it go?
In entrusting complete charge of the literacies funding to HALP, Highland Council gave HALP an edge which allowed a lot of good activity to be carried out. In addition the focus of funding and the obligation to form a partnership to distribute it, enabled an active and lively Community of Practice to be set up involving practitioners from various partners, from those offering straightforward delivery to those in support organisations such as careers guidance.
Of course it hasn’t all been plain sailing. There was a legacy of an underfunded service, carried out only in one to one sessions by volunteers. Gradually over the years HAL Partners have been able to develop group work and accreditation. The Challenge Fund has enabled this kind of delivery to be promoted and encouraged. There are still some issues around who has “control…of basic literacy” (Hamilton, 1996, p.142) I found some resonance too on p 20 of the course papers in that discrete delivery is still seen by some as the real “proper” literacies provision while partners delivering integrated ALN are just “on the edge”. It is an on-going element of our partnership that we too “continue to grapple with”. (Boughton et al, 2004)
We have also had to deal with the turbulence formed where the English and Scottish Initiatives have countered each other in, for example, the Army literacies classes which we provide at Fort George. Time restraints on education time mean that soldiers have to be hurried through courses to achieve Access 3 and Int 1 accreditation in the space of a week and there is not the leeway for them to consolidate their learning or tailor it to their own specific requirements. This fits in the English model (and is the way Army basic skills classes are run in England) but does not allow for the Scottish Social Practice model. We are still (after 7 years) in negotiations with the Army about this.
Over the years, in addition to the actual numbers of learners in literacies provision, anecdotal evidence was collected annually showing how learners felt they themselves were gaining from their learning. However, there was a growing feeling that unless it was made evident in a more statistical way what learning was going on, future funding might be in jeopardy. This suspicion was realised when in 2007 a template came out from the Scottish Executive which included, for the first time, queries about accreditation gained. Suddenly, partnerships were asked to report on an area which had not previously been a significant part of the literacies initiative, which had not been particularly promoted and for which many partnerships were, quite frankly, unprepared in terms of funding and tutor skills.
Change of Government
However before the report for that collecting year was due in, a new SNP Government was in place in Scotland and Partnerships never did have to submit those accreditation reports nationally. We found that not only had the goal posts changed but we were in a different playing field.As part of the new landscape, the literacies money was now no longer ringfenced, even notionially, and some LAs moved quickly to use that money in other areas. Some Literacies Partnerships have been disbanded. Where they remain there is the prospect of delivering adult literacies within a very different agenda. The emphasis on Social Practice has gone nationally and there is a danger that it could go locally. Or if it remain, it will remain only coincidentally where organisations/agencies are able to produce the statistics required for the local SOA within that model. With the guaranteed funding removed it feels a bit like a ten pin bowling alley with the buffers taken away! We are still aiming at the same goals but without the reassurance of the funding that was there previously.
Part of the difficulty for local literacies partnerships is making local decision makers aware of what we mean by “literacy”. This has had a shifting meaning throughout history.
The first national literacy report in England in 1840 measured the amount of “literacy” by the presence of signatures in wedding registers. (Mace 2001) The United Nations definition (2007) of a literate person is someone “who can, with understanding, both read and write a short simple statement about his (or her) everyday life” (quoted by Lind, 2008 p. 42)
The Scottish Literacies Initiative was based on the definition of literacy in the ALNIS report (ALNIS p. 7) as also quoted above;
“The ability to read and write, and use numeracy, in order to handle information, to express ideas and opinions, to make decisions and solve problems, as family members, workers, citizens and lifelong learners” This gave the funders (Scottish Executive) some social practice pegs to set as targets for those receiving literacy provision.
The main definition in modern dictionaries is “the ability to read and write”. But the Heinmann School Dictionary (2002) which claims to be “the most comprehensive school dictionary available” does not include the word “literacy” at all. Is it the case that “complex concepts are (not) susceptible to dictionary like definitions”? (Barton 1994 p19)
The Curriculum Framework and Curriculum Wheel developed by Learning Connections, in consultation with practitioners, help to show the complexity of literacies learning. It was hoped they would “stimulate reflection” in tutors, “introduce wider possibilities” for managers and “promote discussion” with workers. (Curriculum Framework p.7) In Highland this is still "work in progress" requiring training input for tutors. But many do find that these tools are useful for comprehensively setting out the different dimensions and combinations involved in literacies learning.
What now? Are the prospects for literacy delivery looking better or worse?
With the advent of the Concordat (2007) between the Scottish Government and CoSLA in 2007, a new element of “trust” has crept into the political jargon. A National Performance Framework has been constructed with its main purpose being “to focus Government and Public services on creating a more successful country, with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish, through increasing sustainable economic growth”. With the focus on employability there is a danger that funding previously used for literacies provision will be channelled primarily into job readiness and preparation courses with a literacies element. It will be hard, for instance, to argue that a project such as Fit’s it A’ Aboot (Aberdeen Family Learning Team) should attract funding unless the ability to spell in dialect could be shown to be an attribute required for a job.
There is also the question of partnership. In theory LAs are asked to produce their SOA by working in partnership across the organisations involved in the Community Planning Partnerships. In actuality partnership can mean many things to many people. It can be that those making the budget decisions see themselves as working “in partnership” - ticking that box - but that these links are not necessarily consolidated further down the line into the community provision.
Because it is not yet totally clear how literacies will fit into the SOA agenda in Highland, the HALP Strategic Plan is currently at a standstill. It is not certain at this juncture for whom the Partnership Strategy will be. The learners of course, but unless the Strategic Plan is backed up by funding there will be no provision at all other than that provided by partners within their current means. Any Strategic Plan will have allign its targets to tie in closely with the requirements of whoever funds.
Powerful Funding
The beauty of the funding received from Scottish Executive from 2001 onwards was that it was (in Highland) given totally to the Literacies Partnership to do with as it saw fit. Although “trust” may be the SOA buzzword, it is certainly not a new one! Funding is a very powerful motivator for people to work in partnership but even though some HALP Working Group members were representatives of organisations, they did not expect, nor did they receive, funding but still gave willingly of their time and expertise to create a cohesive literacies provision.
Under the new SOA regime the Local Authority now makes the funding decisions. If these are made without consultation there could be some real loss of power within the Literacies Partnership. So, while the social practice model promoted formerly says we do what learners want, actual practice says we do what funders want. If those making funding decisions in Highland haven’t consulted with learners (or even any levels of practitioners in between who are working closely with learners and aware of need) there is a danger that the Partnership feels, and is, powerless. If activity has to be shoehorned into the employabiltiy straitjacket, there may have to be some compromise. However I am heartened by reading about boundaries (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder, 2002 p.154) and suggest that “interacting across practices [may force us] to take a fresh look at assumptions.” Funding constrictions and changing systems may be an ill wind that forces us to work in ways that may be more creative and beneficial.
Sticht (2000) lays out the “dangers and insecurities” of going with the economic argument (Hamilton, Macrae and Tett, 2001 p. 38) and suggests that there “seems to be little influence from educational or organisational research” on the benefits of ALN provision on the economy. Certainly after 7 years of ALN delivery in Scotland according to the social practice model there must be be a body of evidence of its effectiveness (that wasn’t there in 2001) to positively influence future funding. Is this not being produced to inform present funding decision makers or is it, for whatever reason, not convincing enough?
Could it also be that the “pace of change” has not allowed enough time for meaningful consultation and that this has contributed to the current lack of continuity in the literacies initiative? (Hamilton, Macrae and Tett 2001 p. 38)
Conclusion
The days when literacy was a skill owned by only a small part of the population such as lawyers, doctors and clergy, are now long gone. Where advances in the delivery of education gave people the ability to read and write while the majority around them couldn’t, there were opportunities to earn money e.g. in the 1930s Frank McCourt earns money reading risque stories to and writing debt collecting letters for other people, (McCourt p196ff, p 387 ff). This same phenomenon is seen among homeless people in Australia most of whom have low literacy levels and where literacy is seen as a “shared resource” (Castleton, 2001 p.58)Now while an adequate level of literacy/numeracy is seen by many as a vital necessity if people are to be able to play a full part in life and to achieve their potential, it may not be seen by funders in the same light if their focus is on only one particular aspect where literacies might be relevant, e.g. employability. The ideological model makes the possibilities within literacy as limitless as the combinations of the Enigma machine. The autonomous one looks at specific skills only, and there is a real danger at this time that we revert to the autonomous model of delivery. As we have seen, the description of “literacy” in the ALNIS report doesn’t feature in mainstream dictionary definitions, and therefore almost certainly not in the minds of funding decision makers either. (And “literacies” doesn’t feature at all being a new word coined for the first time by xxxxxx in xxxxxx)
The downside of funders having a fairly limited understanding of what we mean by “literacies” is that it is also very difficult to measure and to evidence to them what we are doing and to show the beneficial impact. The measurements of progress are probably as numerous and as individual as the numbers of those who undertake literacies learning and therefore almost impossible to present in any way that does not involve a lot of tedious collecting and collating .
Erlewyn-Lajeunesse and Fowler mention “the almost obsessive preoccupation with quantatative outcomes” of funders (Erlewyn-Lajeunesse and Fowler 2001) but I would suggest that this “obsession” is more by default of it being something that funders (who tend to breathe statistics from morn till night) can understand and appreciate. (Perhaps even as a result of their own past learning experiences?)
There is a danger too, with SOAs devolved to local decision makers that, unless they have their ears to the ground and are consulting with and getting advice from literacies practitioners at some level, their view of what literacies learning entails may well be a reflection of their own view of what is meant by literacies – again, possibly from their own experiences at school.
However literacy provision is not an end in itself but the provision of a tool by which social practices are accomplished. We should therefore not necessarily be alarmed that there is a possibility of being funnelled into other related agendas (such as the employability/economic growth agenda). Ideally the new Curriculum for Excellence will have a beneficial effect on those currently in the school system. Indeed it is a pity that that initiative didn’t run alongside the Adult Literacies Initiative from 2001. What differences might we have been beginning to see by now, I wonder, if it had been? In England one target of the National Strategy for Adult Basic Skills was that by 2010 95% of 19 year olds will have adequate literacy. Hopefully the Curriculum for Excellence may begin to address this in Scotland. In Highland certainly the qualifications of those leaving school in 2008 were no higher than those leaving in 2002 but there is certainly a much more optimistic feel at the present time that schools and community workers collaborating together will be able to make a real difference in this area..
As Tett says (Tett 2003, p 29) “Sustainability is a real issue for partnership working especially in the context of a formal partnership that is funded on a temporary basis.” Perhaps one of the main lessons learned to date has been that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Collaborative working can often throw up ideas that would not have been possible without the synergy of a group or a community of practice. Although the literacies world is undergoing a sea change politically, if we trim our sails and tack we may still be able to make our way, possibly finding new partners to interact with as we go.
“Literacy is deeply and inescapably bound up with producing, reproducing and maintaining unequal arrangements of power.” (Crowther, Hamilton and Tett 2001 p.1)
So, nothing changes! We continue the “balancing act between well-developed communities and active boundary management” (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder, 2002 p.154) even where the boundaries have changed.